Obama’s Three Day Weekend

I was going to hold my tongue on this one, but I can’t.

After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.

Obama arrived at his home in Chicago on Friday, and treated wife Michelle to a Valentine’s Day dinner downtown last night. The couple was spotted leaving upscale Table Fifty-Two, which specializes in Southern cuisine, with the first lady toting what appeared to be a doggie bag.

The president plans to spend the Presidents’ Day weekend in the Windy City, and is not expected to sign the bill until Tuesday, when he travels to Denver to discuss his economic plan.

I’ve always thought that it is healthy for a President to take regular vacations.  It’s an incredibly stressful job and it’s important for a president - on a human level - to have some down time to recalibrate the mind.  But Obama’s been on the job 25 days and this is his second vacation and third getaway (vacation to Camp David and Chicago; quick getaway to visit school).  Particularly at a time when we are in a financial struggle and he is committing the U.S. to spending trillions of additional dollars, he doesn’t seem to mind flinging money around for his travel.  Air Force One is expensive to run just so that he can take his wife to dinner in Chicago after being on the job less than a month. 

UPDATE: Neat.

The president, who has made several trips around the country in Air Force One, was particularly excited during his first trip on the plane as commander in chief when he flew recently to the House Democrats’ annual retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia.

“Thanks for giving me a reason to fly Air Force One,” he told the House Democrats after his flight, which took him away from a week of fighting for the economic stimulus bill.

Donning a blue jacket with the presidential seal on the right and his name embroidered on the left, Obama came back to the press section of the plane shortly before taking off for Williamsburg. WhiteHouse.gov: Obama’s first flights slide show

“Hey guys, what do you think of my—this spiffy ride here?” the president asked the group of reporters traveling with him on the presidential plane.